Israel celebrated her 73rd birthday with the Yom Ha’atzmaut holiday last week. Among the many ways in which the occasion was noted was the singing of Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem, by Wanda Howard Battle as part of the Israeli embassy’s virtual celebration.  Battle is a vocalist at Montgomery’s Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church. She had recently led Israeli ambassador Gilad Erdan on a tour of the church, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had been the pastor, and where he had helped organize the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955. Hatikvah was not officially adopted as the Israel national anthem until 2004, though it had been the de facto anthem since statehood was declared in 1948. Hatikvah, under the name Tikvatenu (Our Hope), was originally a poem written in 1878 by Naftali Herz Imber, a Jewish poet from Ukraine. In 1887, Shmuel Cohen of Rishon LeZion sang the poem using a Moldavian folk-song melody. That melody, which is the tune that Hatikvah continues to be sung to, actually has roots to the 16th century in Italy, from a song called La Mantovana (Mantua Dance) by Giuseppe Cenci. The Hatikvah melody has been heard more recently when a singer sampled the tune in one of his songs. Which rap or hip hop musician sampled the music of Hatikvah in a rap song?

HaTikvah Flag by Avital Pinnick  is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

A. Tupac Shakur.

B. Drake.

C. Matisyahu.

D. The Notorious B.I.G.

E. The Notorious Bet Ayin Gimel.

Click here for the answer.

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